Should He Stay or Should He Go?

Why did I write this? I got challenged by Andy Warren
to write a bit about why I wrote something. I complained to him that he
has some "mechanical" posts on this blog that just mention he wrote
something with some questions, and don't really blog about why he wrote
something. He challenged me to write about why I wrote something, so
here I am.

I got an email from a friend with the article link that's mentioned in the editorial. The email said to read the first page and send him my response, so I promptly read all pages and sent a response back.

As I was reading, I felt quite a few emotions stirring. Frustration with some employees that have worked for me in the past, co-workers that have behaved similar to Eric in the article, and annoyance at the high pay mentioned. I typically haven't known what others are making, so I don't necessarily know if those people I found incompetent or not valuable were making more than me. I was the lowest paid person in my group when I managed a team of DBAs, but since I was the manager that was probably appropriate.

In any case, I thought Eric should be let go, probably after trying to work things out, but I tend to think it's hard to get people to change and if I had to constantly remind him and manage him to change, I'm not sure it's worth it. It's one thing to do that with someone at the bottom of your salary scale, quite another at the top.

As I wrote the editorial, I kept second guessing myself, wondering if I was being too hard, and that made me very curious to see what others would say.